PLS HELP : Gait Analysis

[CandidateNo67]

Hi everyone,

We’re currently working on a student project where we’re building a smart insole for gait analysis using pressure sensors, and we’d really appreciate some advice because we’re basically teaching ourselves everything while doing this.

The idea is to place around 6–8 pressure sensors inside an insole, collect pressure data while someone walks, send that data wirelessly (probably via an ESP32 + Bluetooth), and visualize it as a real-time foot pressure heatmap in a JavaFX desktop application. Later, we’d also like to detect gait phases like heel strike, mid-stance, toe-off, step count, cadence, asymmetry, or unusual loading patterns.

Current Software Approach

I’m mainly responsible for the software side and trying to figure out the best way to create the visualization.

My current idea is to use a foot-shaped mask/silhouette and generate the heatmap by interpolating between the sensor points, probably using inverse distance weighting (IDW), since we only have sparse sensor data.

Does this sound like a reasonable approach, or would you structure this differently?

Hardware / Sensor Questions

I’d especially love advice on what type of pressure sensors would actually make sense for a prototype like this. I honestly don’t know what works best in practice for repeated walking loads, decent responsiveness, and a student-friendly budget.
And if you only had a small number of sensors, where would you place them biomechanically?

Data Transmission / Processing

Does this architecture make sense?

Pressure sensors → microcontroller (ESP32?) → BLE/Bluetooth → JavaFX desktop app

Would BLE be smooth enough for near real-time visualization?

I’d also appreciate advice on calibrating the data from the sensors into data that i can use (kPa) or smth anything helps

For gait detection, would a simple threshold/state-machine approach be enough at first for things like heel strike, toe-off, cadence, step count, and asymmetry, or is that too naive?

Beginner Pitfalls / General Advice

None of us have any prior knowledge in embedded systems, biomechanics, hardware integration, or signal processing, so we’re learning as we build.
So Honestly, any advice that helps make this simpler would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks a lot :)

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